The users of a WWAN system are typically assigned individual bandwidths for communicating with the network; however, much of the individually owned bandwidths are often wasted, as nearly all users do not utilize their bandwidths at full capacity. In the past, to make efficient use of bandwidths, the users of low speed wireline modems have linked banks of modems to create a single higher bandwidth connection, where each wireline modem had a fixed bandwidth constantly available to it due to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) connection. The number of modems was constrained by the number of available PSTN connections. Others experimented with binding multiple wireless data connections within a single device (e.g., binding multiple Enhanced Data Rate Global Evolution (EDGE) radios within a single Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) router/gateway) to achieve a similar result.
Currently, even when WWAN users operate in close physical proximity and are within signal reception of each other, such as in an office, a coffee shop, or on an airplane, their unused bandwidths are being wasted and are unavailable to a nearby user in need of extra bandwidth.